Of Apiaries and Eggplant
by Kepouros
Summary: Hannibal is restless. What knocks on his door may well prove the cure. What he fails to foresee is the lingering, steadily growing effects of such a carelessly undertaken project. As the garden grows, so does his hunger... but is it for the gardener's metaphorical heart, or her still-beating, gushing one? Hannibal/OC
1. Chapter 1

Hannibal wished it would rain.

The sky outside his windows was pregnant and taut with precipitation, but stubbornly refusing to loose its drops. He and every plant on his acreage silently begged the sky to open, but the clouds remained indifferent to the pleas of dying verdance. All the requirements for rain were met and mixing in the stratosphere: why was it waiting?

It was enough to drive anyone slightly mad. He retreated from the window and began to grind his coffee.

The morning wore on at its prescribed pace: French pressed coffee, newspaper, protein scramble with a mid-grade 'choice' cut, newspaper. But his eyes continued to be lured by the heavy cumulus clouds and the silver bellies of maple leaves on the breeze.

He dressed sharply in a suit and tie and stalked the sweeping halls of his house, heading for the internal, windowless study. It was only when he'd breathed a sigh of relief at being away from the oppressive sky, having settled into his office chair studiously, that he realized the clouds had followed him. Unconsciously, he'd chosen a suit, tie, and dress shirt in the same hues of gray blanketing the outside air with humidity and molecular tension.

Snorting softly at his own subconscious' strivings, his fingers wandered over a little-used tablet's screen, checking the weather radar for the area. It showed heavy cloud cover, which he already knew about, but the radar was in the middle of its sweep and would not update the information for another half-hour.

The fabric-covered magnet of the tablet cover clacked shut and he put it down on his desk with an uncaring, heavy hand. The psychiatrist in him began to analyze: why was he so concerned about the weather?

Staring up at the vaulted ceilings of his study (by extension, the atmospheric phenomena under contention) and prodding them for answers, he listed the psychological - with emphasis on 'logical' - reasons for a human's desire for torrential downpour.

_The want of a symbolic cleansing, _he thought. Immediately, he discarded the thought. He had no desire to be cleansed of anything, because nothing stained his soul. If his carnivorous misdeeds were thick, Mesozoic era petrol, then the proverbial cleansing properties of rain were light as linseed oil: sliding harmlessly and ineffectually off his smooth, glopping insides.

_A seeking for soothing auditory stimuli? _Hannibal continued internally. But why? He was calm as ever, save for a touch of impatience at the atmosphere's teasing promises.

_An instinctual want for crops and prey to flourish, _he mused. _And to put a Freudian twist on it, providence for mating opportunities. _

His thin lips quirked dryly in amusement at the thought. He never did put much stock in Freud.

He had but two clients today that required the minimal, autopilot psychiatric urgings. One was a hypochondriac: the other, a mild narcissist. They were of no real challenge, had no true dark secrets, and held not a speck of his interest. In fact, he ought to farm them out to one of his dumber colleagues under the guise of stepping down their level of care. Reaching for his handy Rolodex on the corner of the desk, and dipping into his drawer for a datebook, he thumbed through the carefully arranged business and contact cards, debating his choice of scapegoat for the two bores that weighed his early afternoon.

It was a rare anomaly that his datebook was so barren. Most days, it was stacked with needy, teary-eyed, simple-minded people who usually just needed an ear paid to listen to them ramble and blubber. But today, being a summer holiday weekend tailing off an oddly dry spring, many had called to cancel or move their appointments in favor of hot weather activities.

The weather. It dominated his brain today, even as he called the patients and the referrals.

He wasn't unlike his thirsty land, yearning for the rattle of thunder and snap of lightening. His ears strained for the _pat, pat, pat_ faintly against his distant roof, growing steadily into a lashing roar that drowned the drought and sated the dusty ground.

He shook himself bodily, shutting the datebook with a huff. He needed something to occupy his mind, since patients weren't going to.

Padding down his carpeted hallway in his fine dress shoes, he succumbed to the draw of the windows in his kitchen. Still nothing falling, but the sensitive lining of his nose detected an increase in the warlike humidity.

The promise was alluring. Perhaps the drawn ache of the uncertain was what filled him with such a thrill. He could fathom no other explanation.

He draped his suit coat over a bar chair, rolled up his sleeves, plunked a stool in front of his open refrigerator, and filled a bowl with warm water and a dab of bleach. With his back to the window and the cleaning agent filling his nose, he removed each container of _accoutrements _and rubbed down the shelves they presided. Everything he stacked in the refrigerator was perishable non-proteins: vegetables, expensive fruit, dairy.

He smiled lovingly as he opened the freezer portion. His proteins never made it to the leftover stage. They were too precious.

A liver from a stranded motorist, taken after an obscene gesture at an intersection.

A kidney from a woman whose profane and innuendo-riddled phone conversation could clearly be heard all over the grocery store.

Sections of a femur bone, for roasting in pursuit of buttery marrow, from a collegiate man who thought he was God's gift to the world.

A heart that he really should get around to eating this week...

_Dingdong! Dingdong!_

Hannibal pulled his chemical-laden hands from the freezer, brow knitting. "Who could that be?" he murmured.

Hastily, he made his way to the foyer. A politely insistent series of raps sounded on the stately wood. "I'm coming," he called, flinging open the door.

A woman's fist nearly struck him in the chest, but his killer (literally) reflexes caught it just an inch away. Recovering from the surprise, he looked to the hand's owner with mild annoyance. The vexation faded like smoke on the humid breeze.

With a look of sheepishness over her tanned face, the woman in question grinned up at him. "Oh! I'm sorry, did I hurt you?"

Miles of tanned legs extending from delicious jean shorts. Sunbleached blonde hair from under a cute ballcap. Snapping, bright green eyes... Hannibal had to wet his lips before responding. "No. No harm done." Her hand was knobby-knuckled, strong, and had a dash of dirt imbedded in the creases. The contrast of his own meticulously kept hands and her rough ones was striking. He found his throat in need of clearing. "What can I do for you?" he asked, dropping her fist.

She squared her lithe shoulders with a faint blush. "Not exactly how I like to start my spiel, but, here it goes." Shoving a pamphlet at him, she said, "My name is Maryann Shule. My business's name is Bee All Gardening. I am a fully certified horticultural and agricultural specialist, seeking to bring my skills to the homeowner looking to grow beauty, bounty and health on their own land."

Hannibal did not want to stop looking at her, because the animation with which she spoke was intriguing, but he dutifully opened the glossy pamphlet and scanned the services listing.

"You plant and maintain gardens for the use of a homeowner?"

"Yes, sir," Maryann replied, seemingly relieved that he understood. "From landscaping to vegetables and everything in-between." When she tapped her finger on a particular paragraph, there was an unobtrusive amount of dirt under the nail, like she'd given up trying to clean it out completely. "You strike me as a culinary lover, so let me direct your attention to my Chef Package."

"How would you guess that?" he asked, quirking a smile.

"I can smell it," she confessed, indicating the open house behind him. "Like heaven's Olive Garden. You made chicken marsala last night?"

Hannibal was impressed, even though the 'other, _other_ white meat' was used, not chicken. "Good nose," he approved.

"It's something of a hobby," she replied. "Even thought I'm more of a baker, myself." She tapped the paragraph again. "This includes the widest variety of vegetables, and even some fruits."

_Baker, hmm? _Hannibal, his smile growing despite himself, read the paragraph as she explained. The Chef Package covered a full year, with various vegetables, fruits, and herbs being planted seasonally and tended on an agreed-upon schedule. The price was competitive enough to raise his eyebrows.

He was as restless as the clouds above, though it did not show in his cool exterior. This undertaking might prove the cure.

"Why would I engage your services, Miss Shule?" he asked. It was just as much an opportunity for her to explain, as it was for him to watch her without being accused of staring.

"It's extremely healthy," she began, pleased at the question. "Obviously. The impact of growing your own produce reduces the national and personal carbon footprint. It is easier to go out your door and pick it than drive to the supermarket. And," she leaned in close, as though sharing a secret. "It's incredibly satisfying."

His brown eyes flickered as he mulled her innocent phrasing and the prospect of this endeavor. Why not? Money was no issue. His inner cook was tantalized by the thought of produce at the peak of freshness and flavor - the ideal accompaniment to his choice cuts. And the idea of having this charming young thing bent over and sweating in his yard appealed, too...

As he stared at the pamphlet and considered, he was struck by a wave of oppressive heat. Was the weather, currently refusing to let his sweat leave his skin, altering his mood? Surely not. This was a logical and interesting idea, presented with care and conviction. "I can imagine this most comprehensively, but I believe I would prefer to_ know_." He swung the door open wider. "Would you like to discuss this further in the air conditioning?"

She hesitated. A wise move, though she would never know it. "Forgive my rudeness, but most of my work congregates out of doors. That's where I prefer to be."

Hannibal nodded. Smart woman: she didn't know him. "I understand."

"Won't you walk with me?" she asked. With a sweeping arm, she invited him to his own yard. "I can give you a rough idea of what I would do with your space. A free consultation." She cocked her head to the horizon, where the clouds loomed heavy, dark, and indolent. "The rain'll hold out for us."

Hannibal glanced momentarily over his shoulder, towards his kitchen. "Very well." The rain had been holding out all day: he doubted it was more than an atmospheric tease.

By the time he had shut the door, she had bounded down the stairs and ducked into her older model blue pickup, rejoining him at the base of the porch steps with a tape measure, a few surveyor's flags, and a sketchbook.

"This area would get the most sun, right?" Maryann asked, striding purposefully across his lawn.

"Yes, all year," he replied, falling into step with her. He sneaked a look at her flexing muscles, appreciating the way her ankles tapered gracefully to her worn sneakers. "Why would your business be called Bee All?" he queried, falling back a half step to watch her twitching behind.

"I'm an apiculturist," she replied, looking over her shoulder to beam at him.

"A bee keeper?"

"Very good, Mr. - " she stopped walking, planting her head in her palm. "Damn. I've blabbered on like a moron without even asking your name."

Hannibal chuckled, which seemed to ease her dismay. "Doctor Hannibal Lector, at your service."

They formally shook hands, even though the time for it seemed passed. Her grip was as strong as his, and she met his eye confidently, inclining her head. It gave him the most endearing view of her heart-shaped face and full lips.

Maryann danced forward, laughing with a peal. "I think I've done everything I can wrong with this encounter, Dr. Lector. Nearly punched you, dragged you into this awful heat, and forgot to ask your name."

"In defense of your technique," he replied. "An unusual service calls for unusual implementation."

"Thank you. I appreciate that." She threw her arms wide, palms out, and closed her eyes. It was as though she flung open a portal to parallel dimension, and bade him to see through her eyes what could be. "Picture this: six different kinds of Asian greens, lavish tomato bushes in every shade and shape... and the potatoes! You've never had potatoes like the ones I grow, Doctor."

He listened and envisioned, dreaming of the dishes.


	2. Chapter 2

The second Maryann slid into the bench seat of her truck, the rain started to fall.

A drop hit Hannibal on the eyelid. Another splotched his dress shirt.

The truck roared to life in that way old trucks do, and Maryann illuminated him in the cloudy dimness with her headlights. With a final wave, she arched over her seat and backed carefully out of the drive.

Hannibal watched her go, an invigorating feeling thrumming in his veins. The gardener had that effect. Her excitement and eloquence regarding her chosen profession spoke of a passion, a calling. Her drive infused her every cell, and crackled out like static lightening to tingle over the skin, cause hair to spike in follicles.

Hannibal considered himself shocked.

The raindrops were heavy, their cool impacts like quarters dropped from the heavens. A rumble of drums sounded, hesitant, then growing louder into assertive thunder. He could smell the lightening, like ozone and split molecules that dressed the water droplets like sesame seeds on a plate.

He threw back his head and looked towards the origin, trying to see the actual birth of each bead from the cloud above. He couldn't, though. And he realized belatedly that he was too far from the house to avoid serious drenching.

Briskly, he strode to the shelter of his front porch. Somehow, it felt like a surrender, like a cop-out. Maryann's sturdy rain-shine-snow-or-sleet attitude was contagious.

Over the course of the last two hours, they'd conversed in ordinary business with unique, tangent rabbit-chases.

_"Have you ever had a Green Zebra?" Maryann had asked him suddenly, pegging him over her sketchbook._

_Hannibal cocked his head. "A what?"_

_"A Green Zebra tomato," she clarified. She rotated to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, and doodled in the margin of the rough plot sketch. "They're fascinating little buggers. They are about this big, and they mature to a neon yellow-green with dark green stripes." Artfully penciling the curl of the stem and the jagged stripes on the two-dimensional fruit orb, she gave it a satisfied drum riff with her eraser end. "Not acidic, like you'd think. Sweet, with some tones of meyer lemon."_

_Hannibal was intrigued. "Can you put in some of those?"_

_She grinned. "Sure thing. How about Cherokee Purples?"_

_"Another tomato?"_

_"Yep. Smokey, dark. Improves with cooking."_

_Hannibal imagined that, with her descriptions, he would be sold on anything she suggested. In the end, there was thirty tomato plants, of ten different varieties._

_"Where did you learn to sketch?" he queried._

_She gave him a wry smile. "College helped some, what with the designs they made us draw. Ugly, stilted things with stencils and fancy paper. Didn't like 'em much. But mostly, I taught myself."_

_Her style was rather unique, and somewhat fantasized. She was given to sprinkling sparkle-diamonds and glitter-stars on things as she spoke; the Green Zebra being one of them. Always in motion, like the movement of a bee. "You're not bad," Hannibal said honestly. "Sometime, I'll have to show you my own work. Though it may fall into the 'stilted' category."_

_Maryann's lips quirked. "I'd still like that. Just because I can't draw formal doesn't mean I dislike other people's art. That's not what art is."_

On his front porch, Hannibal regarded the space that would be his garden in a week's time. The memory of her hurried but impassioned pencil strokes dancing over the symbol-ridden sketch was easily brought to life behind his closed eyes.

_"I'll have the contract and final drawing submitted for your approval in two days," she'd promised as he walked her to her truck._

_Hannibal had extended a hand, for the cultural protocol as much as for the thrill of her metacarpals' press against his thumb. "Looking forward to doing business, Miss Shule."_

_"Good day, Doctor Lector," she'd smiled. "I can't wait to grow good things for you."_

_Nor I, _the doctor thought, disappearing into the shelter of his house. Peeling off his shirt made him think of peeling an onion.

* * *

Maryann's key snarled in the lock, as usual. The delay was enough for her hair and shoulders to get utterly drenched by the rain. Opening the door took some wrestling, but she was granted entry. The five-room house was sized right for her: kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, livingroom, and a spare room that was hybrid storage/office/art studio. Sitting in the middle of five acres, about half of which she'd planted as something, it was a sixty-year-old ranch style brick house a chipped, sanded-down quality about it.

As she toed off her shoes, her two cats glared at her from their carpet-covered cave in the corner of her living room. One cave stacked on top of the other, and in the darkness of her vacant, storm-shadowed home, it looked like a nefarious tree from Snow White's frightening forest interlude.

The gardener greeted the two pairs of eyes solemnly. "Jinx. Juju."

Two furred heads, one black and one white, peeked from the cave.

"Don't look at me in that tone of voice," she chided, dumping her purse on the foyer table. "I met a client today. That means more anchovies for you two."

Jinx's black lips curled back in a fanged yawn, and he leisurely stepped out of his cave. Juju hurried to follow, her white paws padding silently.

The gardener shook her head at their antics and dallied in the bathroom, washing her hands and toweling her hair dry.

Maryann had a very special relationship with her cats. They lived as passive-aggressive roommates, mostly avoiding each other, but reliant all the same. Maryann liked the cats due to their quietness, ease of care, and aloof attitudes. She'd probably go nuts if she were completely alone. They didn't exactly _like_ her, but 'like' was a relative term with cats, anyway. Their tolerance - a more appropriate description - spoke volumes. Both animals had been neglected in their previous home, and the shelter had disclosed that fully. But it had not mattered to Maryann.

"Today is six months, you guys," she said as she paced to the bedroom to turn on her computer. Hearing a clap of thunder, she unplugged it and carried it to the kitchen. "I've had you for a half a year now," she continued, scooping catfood from the tall container in the pantry. Setting the bowls a good distance apart, the animals slunk to their food and began to crunch.

"Maybe today's the day...?" she ventured a hand towards Jinx's back.

The cat looked up balefully and hissed.

"Fine," sighed Maryann. "One day, mister. Your time draws nigh."

Juju yielded similar results, but added a paw swipe for good measure.

"Missed again," snipped Maryann, hands on her hips. "But you're on my list, missy."

The computer chimed that it had awoken, and Maryann swayed into her seat with a tired sigh. Pulling up her standard, pretyped contract, she filled in the pertinent blanks and amended a few paragraphs.

Although the idea of the job was standard, the client was far above her usual strata. Usually, the elderly and infirm acquired her services, and they planted the boring stuff: red round tomatoes, zucchini squash, and sweet potatoes.

"Sure, those have their place," Maryann addressed the cats as they walked by. "But a whole quarter-acre of the stuff?"

So, Hannibal was a delightful surprise. One, in that he did not snap-judge her by her dress and looks; two, that he was amenable to her services and interested to boot; and three, that he was just as adventurous as she. Culinarily speaking, anyway.

"Six types of squash," Maryann murmured, checking her notes. "Ten types of tomatoes. Four potatoes." It was incredibly gratifying to be able to talk the doctor into so much variety, without the slightest hint of impatience or disinterest on his part.

_"Have you ever heard of a Purple Viking?" Maryann had asked Hannibal, warming to the trend of opening his world._

_"These varietal names are rather pretentious," the doctor had chuckled. "No, I have not."_

_"Picture a nice, large, white-fleshed potato," she had started to draw it. "Now, add some purple skin and - get this - pink swirls."_

_"Bizarre," he'd marveled, but with intrigue._

_"I dunno about you, but I make a habit of eating tie-dyed foods on principle."_

_His smile had been odd, but not uncomfortably so. More like he was thinking behind some mental curtain. "I think I shall start."_

Coming out of her reverie with a foolish grin, Maryann returned to scowling at the contract. This part was the easy aspect of the ordeal, but for her, the most tedious. Finally, after two hours, she proofed the document and sent it to the printer in the office. As the hum sounded on the other side of the wall signaling the device's obedience, Maryann stretched with a luxurious arch of the back.

The motion made her stomach growl.

"Salad sounds good," she mused, head in the fridge. A furry sensation twining around her ankles made her startle. Juju was winding her sinuous white body around Maryann's calf, and Jinx was letting out "Mrow!" cries of clear begging from under the microwave.

"Oh, sure," scoffed the gardener. "_Now _you touch me." Relenting, she pulled out a tin of tuna and two spoons. The cats ate with fervent patience from the spoons, and Maryann had to smile lovingly at them. "One day, you guys."

The preliminary drawing took three hours of labor over a 24"x30" sketchpad, but the time passed in a hazy of creativity. As Maryann laid the bones of the plot and marked the compass, she found her thoughts turning to the angular, genteel Dr. Hannibal Lector once more.

"I babbled like an idiot, I'm afraid," she told the drawing, a pang of belated embarrassment panging her. She felt so unrefined around him, like a serf to a noble. All she had going for her was a love of plants and a self-deprecating manner. He had everything: money, more education than she could ever wish for, manners, looks, and a delicious accent.

"Mmm, accent," she imitated Homer Simpson, making herself feel better. _"Can you put in some of those?" he'd asked, sluicing through the words like a Nordic river._ She'd do anything Hannibal said in that accent...

Maryann's pencil led broke, and with it, her concentration. Putting down the offending tool, she glanced at the clock.

A shower with rose soap and a pair of cotton men's sleep pants later, she was bedded down in the quiet darkness of her bedroom. Staring up at the slightly unbalanced ceiling fan, she wondered if he'd noticed her nerves. He was so handsome, and he'd kept looking at her like some rare and beautiful bird, as though she was a once in a lifetime sighting through a pair of binoculars on some distant hillside.

Sighing, she turned over grudgingly. He was a client. She was performing a service for money. No matter how many appraising looks she got, that was the line drawn in stone.

_I just hope this doesn't go south on me, _she thought as she drifted off. But her dreams acknowledged the beauty of Hannibal's accent, replaying them like a broken record in her dreams.

* * *

The next morning, after frowning away the disjointed dreams into her tea mug, Maryann stepped onto her back porch to bask in the pale gold of the dawn. Her gardens sprawled before her like a living labyrinth, a green castle beckoning her to read fiction and pick flowers.

But she had no time to linger as she traversed the twisted, mulched paths with familiarity. There was a device in her hand that looked like a canister with a tapered, angled spout and an accordion mounted on the back. Mug in hand, Maryann rounded the final corner and came upon a treeline dotted with white and yellow columnar boxes at thirty foot intervals. The boxes had a swarm of crawling specks at the narrow slit acting as the door, and a few rocketing little specks all around. The thrum of their buzzing was a soothing sound, as the bees were just waking up.

"Good morning, pretties!" she called. Placing her mug in the grass, she pulled a lighter from her pajama pocket. Lighting the twist of woodchips and lavender stems in the canister, she lidded the device and gave the accordion a few pumps. Smoke rose from the spout.

"How is the Zeus hive doing today?" she queried, stepping towards the first box. This clan was of a particularly aggressive nature, hence the smoker, but they gave oodles of honey every year. The queen also proliferated quite readily, so Zeus seemed an apt name.

Dusting the swarm on the door thoroughly, Maryann grasped the handle of the middle tray and slowly pulled it straight up. It was heavy with bees and comb, and the queen was in the lower corner, surrounded by courtesans and lovers. The blue dot on her abdomen helped Maryann find her.

Puffing more smoke all over the hive, Maryann replaced the healthy tray and checked the other four in the hive. "Jeez, Zeus," she marveled. "You're humping everything that moves. I'll have to split the hive again next year."

And so it went down the treeline. Six hives, all busy and active: Artemis, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hera, and Hecate. Masterfully, Maryann checked the remaining hives without the smoker, greeting them softly, looking in the corners for parasitic insects and mold.

She loved the bees. Their activity, their mannerisms, their honey, their protectiveness of the hive. Handling them made her go to a state of calm that no yoga class ever could. It was as though by putting herself at risk of being stung, she accepted the possibility and managed it. It was a bite-sized danger, one that she could compartmentalize and control.

But, as she walked away from the hives and back up the path, she had a niggling feeling that entertaining fond emotion for her newest client was hardly a bite-sized danger.

* * *

**Author's Note: Holy cow, you guys. I did not expect that much love from just one chapter! But hey, if it floats your boat, I'll give you more, gladly. **

**FYI, I do not leave stories unfinished. I make take a week off RARELY, but they will always have completion. It's a character flaw, the need for closure. But in this hobby of writing, it suits a purpose. **

**Holly L. Jensen, Petronille, DementorsKiss95, ROSELOVE, Guest 22, AppoloniaAstria, The Onceler's Unless, glustora, Guest, YinYangSisters, and Megii of Mysteri OusStranger: thank you for your overwhelming adulation. Your reviews make my heart soar.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: For the purposes of this fanfiction, I am following the general timeline of the TV show, but it is placed in a convenient growing season: spring. In the show, the first episode is early winter, but Maryann can't start a garden in the winter! The soil chemistry would be at a standstill, useless for growing. I am nothing if not realistic as a writer.**

**So bear with me, please. That's the only real change I plan to make. **

* * *

Hannibal's patient followed the polite sweep of his arm out of the study where he had spent the last hour counseling her. "Thank you, Doctor Lector," she simpered, her too-red lips curving to a smile.

"Not at all, Mrs. Sands," he replied. "I will see you next week, at the same time, yes?"

"Yes," she agreed breathily, putting an umbrella from her bag as they adjourned to the little exiting foyer.

Hannibal suppressed a roll of his eyes. Mrs. Sands was narcissistic, to say the least, and could not seem to fathom that her ex-husband's turn to homosexuality was due in part to her own emotional and physical affairs during their fifteen-year, unhappy marriage. Vain as she was, she refused to let the sun touch her porcelain skin, using an umbrella to dissuade the harmful rays.

He had to wonder what part of her might taste best: her soft, sculpted cheeks or her lying tongue.

As he escorted her out of the patient exit door, and closed it behind her with a final farewell, Hannibal rolled his broad shoulders with a sigh. He had a two hour layover between Mrs. Sands and his next patient; enough time to eat an unhurried lunch (for no meal, ever, was to be rushed). It was the second day after his initial meeting with Miss Shule. Knowing the gardener's energy, and according to her promise, today would be the day he received the contract and final drawing of his future garden.

Hannibal prepared some of his 'mystery meat' stew. He sautéed the onions, celery, and carrots first, sweating the sweet and savory vegetables together before adding measured herbs and a few liquid dashes. While that continued to move towards nirvana, he went to work on the heart.

He loved the coppery, juicy impurity of the organ. His knife slipped into each of the four chambers lovingly, flicking them open with the razor of the blade. Having produced the most surface area the organ could muster, he thinly sliced it from the vena cava up towards the aortic termination. The heart was vascular, almost porous with health.

_ Such an abused little fist-sized body part, _Hannibal mused, enjoying the stain of lingering pink plasma on the cutting board. _Beating away, day after day, tireless, ceaseless. Yet, it acquires such harm. _As though in point, he used the tip of his knife to gently scrape a tiny plaque deposit from the newest tissue. The previous owner had been under a lot of stress of late, and had been eating his way through it with no thought for his body, or the engine it ran on. Hannibal treated said engine like it deserved to be treated: bathed in vegetables, gently and consistently heated, softened to perfection, and consumed with worshipful, abandoning fervence.

He added the strips of heart to the pot, and some high quality soup stock of his own making. The chordae tendineae - the heartstrings - were discarded as too tough. They would be added to the opaque container in the freezer, and when the container was full after many months with the ends of veins, arteries, organ linings, and otherwise unpalatable bits, they would be reduced to a stock.

Nothing was wasted, not in his kitchen.

The marrow of the femur bone that had been in his freezer would make the soup rich and flavorful, and when combined with the succulence of the heart, would create a perfect, filling lunch. It took his sharpest cleaver and some leverage to crack the human body's strongest bone.

Stirring the pot, Hannibal lifted a ladle to his lips for a sumptuous taste, letting the raw flavors hint at what was to come. The marrow lay like heavy, slightly granular cream on his tongue. The heart's delectable iron taste reminded him of beef.

Except beef was not nearly so healthy in this day and age.

As decadent as using two such fine ingredients in a single dish was, he felt like it was merely fortuitous happenstance: the femur and heart were nearly out of freshness. One did not stay out of the FBI's crosshairs by succumbing to wanton decadence.

No, careful control housed in a casual mindset allowed his kills to be executed with elegant, anonymous precision.

Frowning suddenly, he tapped the ladle clean and laid it on the spoon rest beside the large gas range. _Does this endeavor with Miss Shule qualify as wanton decadence? _Hannibal wondered. _Surely not, or I would never acquiesce to it. _

But as he minded the gleaming copper pot, he had to contemplate if her exuberant charm had roped him in, at a moment he was susceptible.

He was an evolutionary step forward: a psychopath who could feel true emotion. He recalled being restless that day, after all. And when he got restless, he either found something to do, or he found someone to kill. The former had occurred in the form of Miss Shule's convincing proposition.

Hannibal shook his head to dispel the train of thought. He had acted, perhaps, out of momentary weakness, but the effect was advantageous. The FBI had been sniffing around the Minnesota Shrike case, and Hannibal has noticed a rather subdued, pensive Will Graham in the aftermath of shooting Garret Jacob Hobbs. With the Bureau's renewed investigation, it would not have been wise to throw fuel on the fire by seeking more of his favorite foodstuffs.

He'd already fed the blaze enough by his anonymous tip to Hobbs, and it had resulted in the murder of Mrs. Hobbs and the coma of Abigail Hobbs, the daughter of the Shrike.

Hannibal had to smile faintly, with creeping pride. He would show nothing more.

The soup came to an ideal simmer, and again, Hannibal tasted. A bit more spice, to no avail. He detected the carrots were... gamey. Wild. He brooded over the spoonful, crowned with a tiny orange disk. Truthfully, though, he was loathe to admit that he knew nothing else to expect from a carrot. He bought organic from the market, and used them within a few days, but some turned out sweet and others were poignant. He wondered what were the conditions that made for a gamey carrot.

_Miss Shule would know,_ he thought, dumping the ladle again dispassionately.

The soup was passable, with the marrow creamy and the heart meat deliciously tender, but having even one ingredient not up to par made Hannibal occasionally scowl.

Having leisurely eaten his substandard soup, Hannibal settled into his personal study's chair to check his email. The scowl floated off his face when he saw an email from Bee All Gardening.

There was only one person that could be, and her name was on the pamphlet in his drawer. Clicking open the message, he began to read.

**Dear Doctor Lector, **(_'Dear'? _he mused, lips quirking. _A bit informal..._)

**Thank you very much for agreeing to consider my work. As a reminder, my consultation is free, and should you chose to reject my contract and design with finality, you will owe me nothing. **

**I apologize for being unable to deliver these documents in person, but my schedule would not comply with a visit to deliver the actual drawing. Seeing as you have a bustling practice of your own, I thought it simpler to send them via email, anyway. **

**Enclosed is the contract (attachment one) and the drawing, comprised of four JPEG images for easy viewing (attachments two through five). I would suggest printing all four images and aligning the corresponding marks, for best results. **

Hannibal couldn't hide his amusement. Miss Shule addressed her business correspondence like a letter, yet filled it with ceremonious words and eloquently structured sentences. Such a contradiction! He sensed a considerable amount of both formal training in the written word, and an intelligent mind implement it. An English major in college, perhaps?

**In the interest of disclosure, please permit me to reiterate a few details from our conversation and the pamphlet I gave you, as well as preempt some key points from the contract. **

**1. For legal reasons, I must remain the only person to utilize equipment (hand tools, tillers, etc.) in the garden. **

**2. I am committed to growing everything organically, but at your request, I will apply pertinent pest-/herb-/fungicides to salvage the crop. If I do so, you will not be able to eat or use ANYTHING in the garden OR ENTER IT until I deem it safe. Please bear in mind a personal tolerance if you happen across a handful of bug-eaten beans. **

Hannibal stroked his chin, finding her forceful language and sardonic humor somewhat... engaging. Like she was teasing him. Her virtual words could just as easily be construed as politely businesslike. Another contradiction. He ran a finger over his lips and continued to read.

**3. This project covers all four seasons: spring (current), summer, fall, and winter. Our contract is exactly one year in length, which makes the timeliness of signing crucial to the schedule of planting, which in turn ensures prompt harvest. **

Hannibal chuckled. _In short, sign the contract and get out of the way. _

**4. In an effort to give you the best service possible, I will most likely require access to your property at odd hours, when you are not present, and/or without your knowledge. Please note section two, paragraph four dedicated to addressing this in the contract. **

**5. Should you terminate this contract before the end date, there is a penalty fee incurred to compensate me for degradation of tools, plants that I started in the greenhouse but cannot give you, and the loss of any potential work I might have done instead. Again, see contract section three, paragraph six.**

**6. Although I am trained and very experienced in growing food, I am a servant of the seasons and cannot perform miracles, such as watermelon in winter and lettuce in the dead of summer. Please understand the limits of myself and nature. **

Hannibal could practically see her stern expression, hands on her hips.

**I await your approval to either amend or begin the project as presented. **

**Respectfully Yours, **

**Maryann Shule  
****Bee All Gardening**

Miss Shule sought to test his wit by inserting such tacit, almost imperceptible jests. It wasn't rude, but it was... _enticing. _Hannibal's psychiatrist inclinations kicked in, analyzing. Perhaps she did it as a ventilation of repressed flirtatious behavior. She had been quite unwilling to make eye contact during their meeting, and she had stayed pink in the cheeks. It also explained her constant, flitting movement so carefully masked in the plant-passionate demeanor.

She had been skilled at keeping her nerves and repression from his radar. Or he had been so taken that he had missed it. Either way, he took his hat off to her.

Hannibal's eyebrow twitched: a subtle uptaking of the game she had begun. As a test of sorts, he opened the contract. When he found it a locked read-only document, he had to smile. _No slipping anything past you._

The cannibal leaned back in his chair, eyes twinkling. "Smart little woman," he murmured. "Covering yourself in every way. Have you had legal training, too?"

Maryann Shule was a mystery unfolding, like the rough green sepals covering a flower, just barely starting to curl open.

He wondered what color she would bloom.

With a few clicks, he had printed all eight pages of the (unalterable) contract, and the four that were the design. The drawing was too big to fit on his desk, so he arranged them on the floor, aligning the 'a' with the 'a', the 'b' with the 'b', and so forth.

In two dimensions on his Persian rug, his culinarily salacious dreams came to life.

The garden was not the simple rowed style he'd been expecting: Miss Shule had gotten creative beyond what they'd discussed, and Hannibal hungrily drank in the changes. The square plot belied the quaintly patchwork quality about it. Four quadrants with four main paths stretched across the paper, and the paths joined in the center of the plot with a circle marked 'birdbath' and a serifed rectangle marked 'bench'.

One quadrant, labeled 'SUMMER' was drawn with stylish, star-like symbols that the legend at the bottom of the drawing said were corn. The stars covered a fourth of the quadrant closest to the outside, followed by the promised tomatoes, squash, potatoes, and - to the doctor's delight - melons. He counted nine types of melons: three watermelon, two cantaloupe, two honeydew, and two galia.

Another quadrant, labeled 'FALL', was full of artful swirls of pencil that implied vines. The legend called them winter squash, and he picked out butternut, acorn, and spaghetti types. There were beets in orderly rows, leeks, and a few pumpkins.

The quadrant closest to the driveway was labeled 'WINTER', but it was anything but barren. He recalled Miss Shule explaining the concept of low tunnels: simple, neat PVC pipe structures covered with plastic, enabling plants to grow outside of season, albeit slower. Winter seemed the season conducive to a mix of spring and fall crops, like an encore of a delightful performance.

The final quadrant, closest to the front door, was labeled 'SPRING' and composed of triple-rowed beds of lettuces, Asian greens, and some root vegetables. There was a trellis set up along the outside edge that was denoted as 'sugar snap peas'. He remembered her mentioning that the peas were edible, from shoots to pods. Hannibal's mouth watered, even so soon after lunch, at the thought of crisp, juicy peas.

In the inmost rows closest to the birdbath and bench, there were twenty types of herbs, and three types of cut flowers. There was more detail to this drawing than even his keen eyes had time for in the fifteen minutes he had left. With every movement of his gaze, he found some new crop, some tucked away treasure. Radicchio, kohlrabi, endive... sunflowers, summer savory, chervil...

Sitting back on his heels, Hannibal balanced his elbow on his knee, his chin in his hand. She'd thought of everything. She'd heard his requests, and anticipated his needs months before he could even formulate them. She might as well have dumped his recipe box into a pencil and made this.

Hannibal Lector was sold.

He read the contract thoroughly, but it was more a matter of principle than necessity.

Dialing the number on the title page, he listened through two rings.

"Hello, this is Maryann," came the friendly, curious answer.

"A birdbath, hmm?" he queried in an unhurried tone, a masked tease.

She paused, placing him by his distinctive accent (like she'd ever forget it). "I apologize, Doctor," she said, on the fence between contrition and harmless defiance. "But some things just draw themselves."

"Fortunately," he continued, eyes alight. "I agree with the birdbath. But I have a question."

"Shoot."

"What made you put in a bench?"

Another pause. She was plumbing his tone for clues, but finding only an honest question (at least, as honest as he ever was). "You're a reveler," she said finally. "You like to be in the middle of a swirl of activity, taking it all in, watching, directing. A bench seemed appropriate, because a garden is the most active place in the world."

Hannibal was momentarily stunned by her astute reading. In a mere handful of hours, in a first meeting, this gardener had detected one of his most inherent qualities. As he came out of it, he found his hand reaching for a pen from the cup on his desk. A practiced scrawl later, he said, "I've signed the contract. When do we begin?"

He could hear her broad smile. "I'll start tomorrow. I'll sign the contract too, and you can pay the first month."

"Excellent," he mused.

"I look forward to a very fruitful relationship, Doctor Lector," she said, somehow combining shyness with the pun.

"As do I, Miss Shule," murmured Hannibal.

He put down the receiver and regarded the drawing on the floor, fingers steepled, and brain buzzing pleasantly with recipes.

* * *

Maryann hung up her cellphone with a smile, carefully wiping the crumbs of wet dough off the keypad. Doctor Hannibal Lector had sounded pleased, so much so that he dropped his neutral psychiatrist manners enough to actually joke with her.

At least, she had guessed it to be a joke correctly. His tone had been a multi-faceted, multi-lingual puzzle that tingled along her synapses like static. He'd sounded vaguely... _seductive_, somehow. Like her minor recalcitrance had piqued him, amused him. Maryann wasn't sure that was altogether a good idea, or really, what possessed her to do it in the first place.

"So I changed the design a hair," she muttered, kneading her bread dough faster. "Wasn't my intention to pique him. Big deal. He approved and signed."

But she could hear his stunned quiet over the line when she labeled him a reveler. "It takes one to know one," she told the dough, folding it. Her own voyeuristic tendencies when it came to nature and life made her love bees, art, and interesting people.

She paused, fingers buried, and stared unseeing out her kitchen window. Was that why she'd been so attracted to him? Why his voice had chased echoes through her unmemorable dreams for two nights?

Maryann frowned, wrapping her head around the thought, rolling the dough to a rough rectangle. By the time she'd pinched the wheat loaf into shape, she had accepted the fact that he was attractive to her, yes. Handsome, check. Accent, check. Scintillating personality with hidden bits of darkness under paper-thin skin? Check.

She slid the loaf into the unheated oven to rise, setting the timer with a series of beeps. These were dangerous waters to enter. She would have to keep a tight hold on her professionalism if she wanted to maintain dignity.

He wasn't a good idea for her to get wrapped up in. The last time she'd gotten too close to a client...

"I could still back out," she told Jinx, who sunned in the light of the backdoor. "I could apologize profusely, tear up the contract, and only be out a few hours' work."

The cat reared his sleek head to regard her with squinted eyes, as though to say, _Yeah, and I could stop eating small birds. It ain't gonna happen._

Maryann sighed, putting away her ingredients with the carelessness of internal conflict. She needed the money, frankly. That was as good a reason as any. Even someone as frugal and resourceful as she needed steady income. To find someone willing to shell out what she asked for was rarer than she'd like.

But besides that, she always had gravitated to interesting people. The ones with still waters that ran deep (dangerous), with hairpin nuances that turned their whole beings askew into fascinating chaos and alien beauty. One twist of a personality that made their souls like the surface of the moon.

She only hoped that Doctor Lector's brand of 'interesting' could be held at a safe bay.

"One year," she assured herself. "One year of occasional contact. I can keep my crap together for that long."

The sunning cat's tail flicked like a mockery.

* * *

**Author's Note: I know, I know. A bit more boring than I would have liked. I hope you guys still like it. **

**Thanks for the reviews: TemporalBONES, YinYangSisters, 42believer, .5, Guest, Holly L. Jensen, AsherahRiddle, The Onceler's Unless, Maya95, DancingNancy, paigeafterpaige, Mockingtale Bright, watergoddesskasey, Sures1109, Breathewithme, Jasper Blood, Ghost in the Computer, Avis11 , and Lunar Nightshade. **

******Thanks to Maya95, for help with the flashbacks!**


	4. Chapter 4

Hannibal Lector had only just pulled his bedcovers back into place when he heard it. Low, distant, rumbling.

_An airplane? Helicopter? _he thought, striding to his bedroom window. No, the sound was too ground-level, and much too close. Pulling back his curtain, he peered into the early, hazy morning.

There, rattling up his driveway, was a tractor.

Needless to say, Hannibal was somewhat flummoxed.

The machine was a shade of blue somewhere between deep summer sky and robin egg, though obviously faded and flecked with rust due to age. It sputtered very little smoke from its stack: instead, the transparent ripples of a cleanly burning motor. There was a gang of plates on the back, arranged on a chassy in rows, and the entire array was held off the ground like dinner plates on a drying rack. The large rear tires were to the hips of the person bouncing in the driver's seat, and that person was wrapped in a fluorescent orange reflective vest several sizes too big.

The person looked up at him, in his second story window, and waved merrily.

Hannibal was compelled to wave back, with an incredulous shake of his rustled head. Maryann Shule, who else?

The doctor threw on a robe and came down his stairs, rubbing trace sleep from his eyes. As he went, he heard the tractor cut off. Approaching his front door, he flung it open without preamble. This time, he was ready for the descending fist and caught it easily. "Good morning, Miss Shule," he said, sounding much like the tractor in gravel tone.

The young woman beamed at him, retracting her knuckles with a deja-vu expression of amused apology. "Good morning, Doctor Lector!" she practically sang.

"Hmm, Miss Shule," he growled, though without sufficient menace to cause concern. The woman knew not how lucky she was, for her innate charm saved her from a quick snap of the neck. "It is far too early for such cheer. I've yet to even have coffee." He'd killed people for less than disturbing him before his coffee.

She bobbed her head, smiling, and the earplugs dangling from her neck jostled. "Sorry," she said more softly, but no less energetically. "I've already had my coffee. About three times over, in fact."

"It is possible to overdose on caffeine, you know," he replied in a quasi-berating manner.

The gardener threw back her head and laughed with the ease of legal drugs. "Then I've chosen the right place to OD, hmm?"

Hannibal finally smiled back. "Incorrigible you might be," he said with a chuckle. "But somewhat inaccurate. I am a psychiatrist, not a medical doctor." Not anymore, anyway. But she need not know everything about him.

Miss Shule shrugged gaily, already dancing back down his steps. "I prefer the less invasive methods, anyway. Bring the contract out when you're awake!"

"Shouldn't you sign it before you begin?"

"Hey, if you back out, you'll be the one with the hole in your yard, not me," she said, slanting her hips in a rebellious but kindly manner, still sauntering towards the behemoth machine.

The doctor smirked, outwitted in the name of progress. "Fair point. Carry on, Miss Shule."

She touched the brim of her baseball cap, eyes bright with mischief. "Thank you, Doctor."

Such a joshing little thing! Hannibal fingered down his hair in consideration as she swung back onto the contraption like a gymnast on the beam: over the tire, hitching a leg over, then sliding into her seat.

He preferred the less-invasive methods, too. At least, until he got hungry. But in a way, being a doctor of the mind was even more intimate than performing surgery or killing. He could slip into them through their ears, glide up their tear tracks into their eyes. He could wreak roiling, quiet havoc under the surface of their minds, the same way a sea monster's curling throes in the deep showed merely as ripples.

He could play with their brains because he saw a tiny piece of himself in every one of them. Even an anomaly like himself desired to feel similar to the prey he walked the planet with: a lingering subconscious urging to fit in with the herd, because predators singled out the oddballs. Since he was so inherently _different, _such startling mirror moments were rare.

It didn't matter. He could invade both body and mind at will, if he cared to.

Psychiatry suited him in many ways, if he were honest. The only downside was that he couldn't eat minds, only brains.

He watched as Maryann channeled her weight to one foot, depressing a seemingly heavy pedal and yanked back on a rod. Hannibal's eyes widened marginally when she reached with rather innocent titillation between her legs. From his viewpoint, it looked like she was...

She frowned with consternation, feeling around, and Hannibal's usually steady heart did a little flounder in its rhythm as he imagined her mischievous expression from before coupled with _that_ motion. A dangerous combination, that fantasy. Suddenly, the wandering hand twisted, presumably on a key, and the engine of the tractor roared to life, breaking his trance.

Hannibal could do little more than return her wave as a slightly dazed nod.

He would never look at a tractor the same way again.

"Decaf it is," he muttered, going back into the house. He was wide awake, now.

* * *

Maryann had already marked the plot with some spray paint on the ground, and made sure the corners were square. Her trained eye critically noted the angles as she crept the tractor forward, deciding a plan of attack. Satisfied, she threw her body into another handle's resistance and the gang of disks behind her dropped heavily.

She wriggled in her earplugs and put the tractor in work gear, grinning at the snarl of response. "For Narnia!" she laughed as the disks bit into the ground. _Jeez, I need to tone it down. Less caffeine around the clients. Especially this client. _Maryann's hands tightened in determination even as she winced in belated embarrassment. She would not mess up, in any way, shape, or form.

Maryann settled in for a couple of hours of riding. First, the entire plot was chopped one direction. Then, she turned the surprisingly nimble tractor on it's inner wheel and sliced the soil the opposite way. Paying attention to the buffer zone, she skillfully raised and lowered the disk as needed to preserve the grass outside the plot. The once-pristine lawn was disappearing, leaving turned up dirt clumps, root threads, and tire tracks. The right speed was crucial to the effectiveness of the disks. Too fast or too slow, they would not bite the ground.

She approached the newborn garden so that her tire tracks would coincide with the paths, making the compaction of the machine a nonissue. The sun steadily rose, bathing the world in light and life. It was a cool spring morning, but soon she would be driven from her jacket by the rays. Maryann sipped her travel mug, silently toasting the astrological body that powered all existence.

The property was lovely, she had to admit. Flat, mostly, with some very slight grading towards the south, but all in all conducive to planting. Looking over the soil she was slicing up, she noted its clump size, color, and consistency. After a few more passes, she parked the machine and stood up on the tractor, making sure she had not missed any strips of grass, and that her pattern was even. "Nailed it," she murmured, finding herself significantly calmer. The coffee was wearing off leaving her slightly drowsy. Navigating the tractor to the driveway once more, she turned it off and dismounted.

Hands on her hips, she gazed proudly on the fledgling garden. The promise of what was to come enticed her.

* * *

Hannibal had paced from window to window watching Maryann work the tractor. It took skill that he did not have, and did not care to earn, but that made it no less impressive. The gardener rode her metal steed like a queen of the earth, pausing now and again to eye her previous conquests, peering over the wheels, jiggling a rod that made the tractor fluctuate in power as she demanded. The powerful machine responded to her every command, docile and obedient.

Eventually, though, Hannibal realized he did not need to be present for the marking of the ground. Being a client in this sort of service was foreign to him, and he wondered how he was to respond to each step, each stage. Just how involved was he supposed to be?

What did it matter to him? He moved away from the window, retreating to his study, but he could still hear the motor chuckling: near, far, near.

He typed up some patient file updates. He checked TattleCrime and the news. He sipped his coffee. He called to check on Abigail Hobbs' condition. Though it had not changed, he noted a flicker of disappointment in his chest. Hannibal had much he wanted to do, in regards to Abigail Hobbs. He sensed her a shelled baby bird, twitching in induced sleep, brain alight with dreams dipped in blood.

In the young Hobbs, he sensed a like mind. But she would have to wait.

After almost three hours, the tractor turned off. Hannibal's head raised, ears pricking. He brought the contract out of his drawer, already catalogued in a beige file named 'Bee All Gardening', and a pen, then set out for the front door.

His porch was hotter than before, and there was a patch of dark, disturbed earth where there had not been before. For a moment, it disconcerted him that his norm was rocked. Almost, but not quite, it irritated him. For a split second, he felt like he had made a mistake; a bad decision under duress.

But then, he saw the young woman crouched in the newly turned earth, scratching, squeezing handfuls, poking them apart with a finger. He was struck by how small she could curl around her knees, and how much she looked like a child playing in the dirt. Hannibal's irritation lapsed. He had a guide through this willingly undertaken project. She was intelligent, vivacious, and blessedly guileless. She was a sweet mystery with her teasing eyes and easy smile, like a Christmas gift he was bound to like. Maryann Shule was not a mistake.

When she noticed him standing there, she stood and walked towards him with a handful of dirt, stopping one step below him on the stoop. "Look at your soil," she said, presenting him with the handful in both palms, like a reverent offering. "See the tilth? That's the texture of the soil. It binds well, that means it's the right amount of clay, sand, and silt." She cupped her hands together, then prodded the misshapen ball with a finger. "And see how it crumbles with a touch? That means it aggregates excellently, so it will hold water well, but not for too long." She dragged her fingers through the crumbs. "It's already got a fair amount of organic matter, too. I'll add a bit more, for good measure."

Hannibal took in her smudged knuckles, her darkened nails. The contrast of the nature of the woman and what she held was profoundly evident. "I see," he murmured. Lifting a hand, he took a pinch of the dirt from her palms and placed it in his own. It was strange, holding dirt. He couldn't remember the last time he had done so. The grainy roughness as he pressed it into his hand's creases, testing it, was somehow soothing.

Maryann turned on her heel and flung her handfuls far and wide, scattering them into the grass. Hannibal dumped his own over the railing, brushing his palms together even as she rubbed hers down her pants legs. "Soil is amazing," she marveled. "One teaspoon can hold up to one _billion _bacteria."

Hannibal had to agree, though with less awe. "Amazing."

The gardener gestured to the file folder under his arm. "That for me?"

"Yes," Hannibal said, shaking the remainder of the spell free. "Here you go." He handed the contract and the pen to her, and she clicked the pen and signed. He hid a smirk at her confidence in the contract's contents.

"Could you perhaps run a copy for me, Doctor Lector?" she asked, giving it back. There was a dirt thumb print on the margin.

He found himself deeming the sweep of the 'y' in her signature very characteristic. Any excuse for exuberance was seized with gusto. "Of course. Would you like to come inside, where it's cool?" For the moment, it was as it seemed: an invitation.

The change in her demeanor was sudden and marked. She took a step back, declining her head and raising her hands with a weak smile. "Oh, no, that's quite alright. But thank you anyway. I'll just wait out here."

Hannibal internalized his curiosity in favor of politeness. "Very well."

As he ran the copy in his office study, he wondered what could possibly garnered such a reaction from her. She was a jovial person, given to many friends and amicable acquaintances: it was not an aversion to people. Was it a fear of being indoors, claustrophia? She had to live somewhere, and didn't exhibit any other signs.

Or maybe... maybe it was just him. Had he not been as careful as he ought in hiding the dark miasma that clouded his soul?

Nonsense, of course. He was perfectly composed, above reproach. But he could not discount the nudgings of woman's intuition. In his life, Hannibal had been surprised on more than one occasion by the astute gut of a female. He chalked it up to some kind of evolutionary gift, a sixth sense for those in touch with it.

_Now, _he thought, carrying the copy back downstairs. _What to do about it?_

Hannibal had two options. He could either allow this intuitive notion to go unchecked, and keep her at arm's distance.

Or, he could thread his fingers in hers, slide a hand down her wrist, cup her elbow, span her ribs... and convey her into a dance with him.

He knew not why he wanted to convince her to trust him, only that he did.

It was motivation enough for him. His kills were reasonless wants, after all.

"Here you are," he announced his presence as his feet found the porch. "Miss Shule?" She was not where he had left her. When he did locate her, all he could see was the lower half of her body. The rest of her was buried in a bush in his front landscaping. Her "Shh!" came from within it, followed by the snap of a cellphone camera. Slowly, she withdrew her torso and head from the shrubbery, phone in hand. "Look!" she said, presenting him the phone through the railing.

Hannibal steadied the screen with his fingers under hers. The photo was of a twiggy nest with four blue-with-brown-speckles eggs.

"Mockingbird," the young gardener declared, taking back her phone and coming up the stairs.

Hannibal presented her with the copied contract. "For your records."

"Thank you," Maryann said. When she saw him taking in the chucked ground, she commented, "Reaper is a good machine, hmm?"

"You named your tractor Reaper?"

"Like the song from Blue Oyster Cult," she explained. "'Don't Fear the Reaper'."

The doctor cocked his head. "My tastes trend towards Chopin and Tchaikovsky."

"Oh! Do you play any instrument?" she asked excitedly.

"The harpsichord."

Now it was her turn to cock her head. "The what, now?"

Hannibal found her expression of ignorance endearing, and laughed in a way that was not insulting. "I can see I'll have to broaden your horizons, Miss Shule."

"And I, yours, Doctor." She joined him in bracing against the banister, watching the birds hunt the scarred ground for bugs in a bizarre, swooping, beautiful dance. "It's going to be a great year."

The cannibal smiled in response.

* * *

**Author's Note: Holy crap, I'm tired. And I have to be up at five tomorrow. Take this shortie chapter with a grain of salt, please. Thank your for all your reviews, faves, and follows. **


	5. Chapter 5

The audacity of Freddie Lounds made Hannibal's teeth ache to set themselves in her flesh. Will Graham was _his _plaything, not her tabloid fodder. And the sharp anger at having someone else try to play with his new toy was nearly enough for him to kill the journalist right there. But, no. Lounds would prove useful in the long run, and someone was bound to know she had come to his house, which made killing her outright shine a suspicious light on him. That would not do. Hannibal let the pale redhead go, but sternly.

Will Graham was slowly starting to open up to him, cresting the earth like a spear of asparagus pointing its dark, scaled crown towards the sun. Unfamiliarity between them was a small barrier to Hannibal, and in due time, even that would fall. Patiently, he would pluck the scales off the spearhead, so subtly as to be unnoticed until it was too late.

He agreed with Will on feeling responsible for Abigail Hobbs, but certainly not for the same reasons. Hannibal's care was simply an outer interpretation of the insatiable curiosity he held for the little blood-drenched fledgling. The most basic psychology question played out twofold in Miss Hobbs: nature, or nurture? Was she by the nature of her father a killer? Or was she, by presumed nurture, shielded from any homicidal tendencies? These questions and more begged answer. The cannibal wished she would wake up, so that he could tighten his bird snare around her foot.

The mushroom killer made Hannibal think of his own garden, teeming with - bacteria, was it? - in his front yard. He could appreciate the idea of using people as living fertilizer, if not the entirety of the concept. His was the realm of music, manipulation, and murder. If Miss Shule were a killer like him, she might grasp the art and complex beauty that was just beyond his capacity for interest.

He wondered... was is possible for him to twist her into a killer? The thought held merit, but he filed it away for revisit. Hannibal was having too much fun gobbling up whatever she lay before him, ravenously devouring her personality and relishing that she demanded nothing back.

Oh, how he loved to take in personalities. The more complex, the better, and the longer they took to unravel. When he was done slurping them up like a long strand of spaghetti...

he would wipe his mouth...

and kill them.

In a way, it might even be a form of bulimia. Having eaten his fill, he would terminate the digestion, killing his meal after having metaphorically, nonphysically swallowed it down. As though by eating their personalities, he was nourishing himself, and by killing/'vomiting' them up, he was rejecting their shallowness and hideous humanity. They fed him twice; his darkness and then his body. It was fitting for such useless souls to serve a double purpose, in some way.

But the finite selves of his quicker kills were not at nourishing, to either aspect of himself that needed feeding. In a way, coaxing his longer-term kills into the shape he desired was much like Miss Shule's gardening: he was growing his own food _exactly_ the way he wanted.

But he would never kill where there was mystery, or before his meal was finished. It showed in his number of victims how many simple people masqueraded as worthy of the world, who pretended to be the finest vintage when they were simply water. And in his taking of their lives, he turned them from water to wine.

If it was boiled down, his kills were the perfect celestial alignment of disgustingly finite personalities (that held as much culinary interest as a saltine cracker), a motive (usually to fill his freezer), and an opportunity (but he would pierce the very fabric of fate with his own knife to arrange the time and place, so really, opportunity was a moot point).

Back to Miss Shule - she seemed merry to give him much of herself, without requesting more than his occasional attention. Her strand of spaghetti, unless incredibly misleading, would take him a while to eat.

No, he was having far too much fun with Miss Shule to form her with his shadowy fingertips.

But then, circumstances changed like seasons. There was always a chance she'd pose him some question that desired answer for, and he'd plunge his marionette strings into her (born on the needles of his sharp brain) just like anyone else.

* * *

**Dear Dr. Lector,**

**It is my belief that a client should know what their soil is like, and count it as pride. I understand if you care more about results than the dirt itself, but hey, until something goes in the ground, you're paying me to manage dirt. This, I am compelled to give you updates on your dirt. (Emoticons are unprofessional, so just imagine a smiley face here, please).**

**I am thoroughly pleased with the quality of the soil I turned for you yesterday, and I believe it will make for a fantastically abundant garden. Your soil is, within a ten-percent margin:**

**30% clay (great for chemical conductivity!)**

**40% silt (a little high, and could make the soil too tight, but the amending will fix that)**

**20% sand**

**10% organic matter.**

**I have used my soil analysis kit to get accurate readouts on the nutrient levels, and the annotated results are as follows:**

**Nitrogen: adequate due to the grass thatch, but more will be necessary as the season progresses**

**Phosphorus: lacking**

**Potassium: lacking**

**Micronutrients: lacking.**

**Please don't be offput by the 'lacking' elements. It is part of our contract for me to amend the soil to the levels of fertility it needs. This analysis is typical of Virginian soil. **

**Soil chemistry is a fickle thing. Once the soil is turned, the biological and microbial life blooms afresh at the ingestion of oxygen. This takes a few days to hit peak, and that is when I will see you next, with amendments in tow.**

**Until next time, **

**Maryann Shule**

**Bee All Gardening**

Hannibal smiled inwardly, enjoying her turn of phrase and syntax like a fine wine. His previous thought of twisting Miss Shule resurfaced, but found nothing to gain foothold on. She'd been nothing but an open book thus far, save for...

Ah! That instance with which she had politely yet so vehemently declined his invitation into his house was nagging, and it filled Hannibal up as only a psychological puzzle could. If pressed, would she yield her secret? If imposed upon, would she insist on refusing shelter? He would investigate soon, when the opportunity presented itself.

To tie himself over, Hannibal nibbled at the neuroticism that Will crumbled onto his plate. "Killing must feel good to God, too. He does it all the time. And are we not created in his image?"

The ever-so-slight flutter of the rustic man's face muscles was delectably well seasoned.

* * *

**Dear Miss Shule,**

**Thank you for your diligence and devotion to our project. I appreciate any and every act of the sort, even, as you put it, 'managing the dirt'. **

**I find the chemistry aspect of soil to be something of a mystery, but am heartened by your keen understanding. Am I to assume that it is your education serving you well in this? **

**Even this supposedly boring stage of the undertaking is delightful to me. I find the smell of soil to be soothing and - pardon the pun - grounding. Please excuse, then, my seeking of clarification: what sort of soil bacteria were you referring to? What comes to my mind are the beneficial strains living in the intestines, and the malevolent types that cause wounds to infect. **

**I look forward to our next meeting. **

**Sincerely, **

**Dr. Hannibal Lector, Psy. D. **

Hannibal sent the email and booted down his computer. Shrugging into a jacket and stepping into shoes, he walked onto his graceful front porch, bathed in the halfmoon's wane light. The air was cool, almost cold, and his breath was given ghostly form for a few inches before his face.

He crossed the grassy lawn leisurely, enjoying the night. The whisper of grass under his feet, the lethargic trill of hidden crickets, the faint sigh of a distant breeze, and the inky darkness was peaceful to him. He felt like he belonged in the night's embrace.

Coming to the edge of the disked plot, he bent down and grabbed a handful of soft earth, letting it crumble to a comfortable amount in his fingers. As he had done before, he took a pinch from the pile, dropped the rest, and lay the teaspoonful across his palm.

_One billion bacteria. _He could almost feel them stirring sleepily in the creases of his hand.


	6. Chapter 6

**Dear Doctor Ecle **- Maryann backspaced feverishly, rubbing her eyes - **Lector, **

**You are somewhat correct on the subject of my education. Although I do not have nearly the number of years that yours required, I am close. **

The gardener almost backspaced again. It was early, and she had not slept well. The mug of double-strength black tea warmed her coaster and wafted invitingly. Maybe she should answer the email when she was more awake, like lunchtime. Chewing her thumbnail rid it of lingering traces of dirt, which even a scrub brush would not cleanse, and she considered with a frown what was inclining her to respond to his question about her schooling.

"I don't _have_ to say anything," she informed the cats, who were happily thrashing their tails over a breakfast of MeowMix. "I'm not obligated to."

The animals' quiet crunching filled the silence.

"You two are as much help in decision making as a Magic 8-Ball," Maryann huffed with discord, sitting back from the computer. "Why the hell would I want to answer in the first place?" she murmured. _He's charming, nice, and curious, _supplied her brain. _Reason enough, most of the time, _she conceded. "He's curious about me," she debated. "It might even be business-related, like wondering what my credentials are."

With the query placed cleanly in the realm of business, which eased her anxiety, she typed:

**If you are in search of references, please, do not hesitate to peruse my website, including the customer testimonials and the photo gallery. It is the only concession I give to bragging. **

**My college years are somewhat haphazard. I have three degrees: Asso. in Horticulture, Asso. in Business Administration, and Asso. in Culinary Arts. All three, though unrelated and brief, were a conscious choice to make the most of my few years available for schooling. With this trifecta, I was qualified for a variety of options in the working world. Shame, then, that I chose to work for myself. (smiley)**

**In fact, I feel I chose well. Although they may not carry the weight of bachelor's degrees or higher, they prepared me to obtain experience in the field of my choosing. Don't you think that experience is the best educator?**

**Perhaps my overexplanation is a sign of defensiveness. I tend to feel small when held up against Psy. D. achievers like yourself. Do you give free psychoanalyzing? (smiley)**

**Oh! And the bacteria in the soil is utterly harmless to humans. It is simply the soldiers of the soil world, with rival strains constantly warring against each other. ****Imagine a plant's roots as being lined by a vast series of keyholes. By encouraging the good bacteria and biological life, they flourish and anchor in the keyholes. This in turn denies access to the keyhole by malicious bacteria, and they do not harm the plants. **

**Some strains cause rot and disease in plants. Others encourage nitrogen fixation in legumes. But really, just like people, each do what they were made to do.**

**Anyway, I hope that answered your questions. Sorry I am so longwinded. **

******On another note, may I visit you on this coming Wednesday? It is time to amend!**

**Sincerely, **

**Maryann Shule  
Bee All Gardening**

"Alrighty, then," she sighed, sipping her tea. "Who's on the schedule today..." clicking around in her virtual dayplanner, she saw that today was a maintenance visit for the Litmans, a delightful elderly couple that had hired Maryann to keep their landscaping beds cared for on a yearly contract. They were one of her longest standing clients, going on five years.

Maryann smiled with delight. The Litmans had been plant collectors for all 52 of their married years, and their gardens showed it. The only thing that stopped them from caring for the space themselves was her bad back, and his bad knees. Maryann could get lost in the blinding variety of their collections of hostas, irises, roses, apple trees, and so much more. Plus, they always gave her some of Mrs. Litman's homemade lemonade, which had been known to make Maryann see stars with deliciousness.

The kitty flap in the door smacked back into place as Maryann's furry roommates exited for a foray. "Yeah, I should go, too," she called after them. "But it was lovely seeing you both again. We should do this more often."

Slapping together a peanutbutter sandwich for breakfast, and another one for the road, she ventured outside and raided her tool shed, mug still in hand. She clipped a fat bouquet of tulips for Mrs. Litman, who was forever adoring of spring bulbs. The drained mug served as a good makeshift vase, with a little water from the spigot.

After piling every tool she could think of needing in the bed of her truck, Maryann coaxed the vehicle through a backfire, down her driveway, and onto the street. An easy ten minutes later through light Virginian fog, she squeaked to a halt beside the gated community's security booth.

The guard on duty was an imposingly tall black man who eyed her suspiciously.

"I'm here to see the Litmans," she said with a wavering smile. "I'm their gardener."

"Mm-hmm," he grunted, looking over her slightly muddy truck and mutlitude of tools. Maryann tried to look as innocent as possible, though she'd been told her attempts had the opposite effect.

The guard was worrying her with the wait. If he refused her entry, she couldn't wake the Litman's this early to phone her in, and that would set back her entire day.

_Plan B, _Maryann thought. "I don't think I've had the pleasure of meeting you," she said, plucking a stem from the tulip bouquet. Extending the bloom towards the booth's window, she continued with a bright smile. "Maryann Shule."

The burgundy tulip bobbed in her hand for a heart stopping moment of indecision. "Jackson Rhodes," replied the man finally. He did not smile with his mouth, but he did soften considerably, and he took the slender stem from her carefully with his massive hands. "Thank you. You may pass."

"Thank you," Maryann beamed and eased her truck under the raised bar, breathing a sigh of relief. She looked back just in time to see the gruff, stoic man bring the elegant flower to his nose.

"Convert made," she concluded. It pleased her greatly to make a friend, and even more so to share the simple joy of a fresh flower. _I wonder if I'll convert Dr. Lector in any way. _The doctor seemed fairly open minded: he'd shown that when he approved her design. But who was she to impose her opinions on anybody? Maryann was not nearly so conceited or bold.

But then, she could always hope she had something to offer, some knowledge or skill that was unique. Grandiose aspirations, given his status and formal bearing, but it always gave her a secret thrill to be good at something - like growing things - that another was not.

Did that make her profession just a lucrative ego trip?

The Litman's mailbox was draped in the tiny foliage beginnings of a climbing rose. Maryann decided to start there and parked her truck in the driveway, pruners and hand hoe in grasp. She set to work humming under her breath.

* * *

Hannibal intensely reread her words. **'But really, just like people, each do what they were made to do.' **The implications wrapped around his brain like boa constrictors and squeezed.

He opened a reply and quickly typed:

**Miss Shule,**

**Do people REALLY do what they are meant to do? Is there some overarching grand design, in which we cannot escape our destinies, our fated roles on this planet?**

Hannibal backspaced quickly, shocked at his own bolt of emotion. He had no desire to get into theories of godhood and fate with this woman, who was a veritable stranger to him.

In fact, even if she wasn't a stranger, he would not have this conversation.

So, after rubbing his temples self-deprecatingly, he tried again:

**Wednesday sounds just fine, and do not apologize for a thorough explanation. I imagined full well what I was getting into when I asked. **

The doctor repressed the urge to tack a 'smiley' onto the statement. Her exuberance was contagious, even virtually. Although, emoticons were useful for expressing what words could not, and for tempering the sentiment of a blunt statement.

She would have to believe the best of him. No smiley. His pride would not allow it.

**But I have another question for you, if you will indulge me. When we met for the first time and spoke briefly on the subject of our mutual drawing hobbies, you commented, "Just because I can't draw formal doesn't mean I dislike other people's art. That's not what art is." Tell me, what is art to you?**

**Sincerely,**

**Dr. Hannibal Lector, Psy. D. **

He sent the email and barely had time to reflect before the phone rang. Hannibal picked up the receiver, half expecting it to be Miss Shule. His presumption showed in the baritone of his, "Hello, this is Dr. Lector."

"Doctor," another man's bass answered, sounding like a lion excited to its feet. "It's Jack Crawford. Abigail Hobbs just woke up."

The cannibal's hands tightened on the phone. "I'll be at the hospital in twenty minutes."

"No need," came the terse reply. Hannibal distantly heard a horn beep in his driveway. "I'll drive. We have to stop and tell Will. He'll want to come."

Hannibal had to smile. Oh, to see _that _interaction would be as lovely as freschetta before a meal. "Very well," he said, letting an allowable amount of excitement to be mirrored in his own voice. Any excuse to imbed himself further in Will Graham's psyche.

He'd managed to get an acupuncture needle's depth into Will Graham's mind with the FBI's assignment of Graham to him for therapy. And with each encounter, he drove his needles deeper, plumbed more from the hapless man with a subtlety that lent itself to metaphors of the harpsichord's transcendental approach to the musical scales.

He knew what art was, to him. _The question is, _he thought, grabbing a coat from the closet. _How different will Miss Shule's answer be from mine?_


	7. Chapter 7

Hannibal had not heard from Maryann in the four days after his email. Although he had plenty to keep him occupied, what with he and Will Graham's sudden responsibility for Abigail Hobbs, in the quiet moments of car rides and sips of water at lunch, it unnerved him, rankled him.

Why that was, he had no earthly clue. For a man who knew himself well enough to recognize and carefully diet the beast within, he could not fathom why he cared so much about the response of his mere gardener.

It felt like being cut off from a feast.

"Are you alright, Doctor Lector?" queried Abigail, the large eyes in her pale face probing hollowly. "That's the second time you've sighed in the last minute."

Hannibal's instinct was to hide the weakness shown by his internal musings' seeping into reality, but that would have done no good. Over his disgusting cafeteria burger, Will Graham was watching him quizzically, too.

Hannibal's long, multitalented fingers landed on the foot of his thick plastic cup, which sweated ice water onto his quadrant of the table the trio shared in the wanly lit sunroom. As far as institutions went, Hannibal liked the converted colonial, with its large windows and old woods. Too much light, though. "It is a habitual way to relieve worry, I am afraid," he replied, turning the cup in its tiny ocean. "I am worried about you."

Abigail hesitated to take a bite of her chicken sandwich (processed bird pieces Hannibal would never let pass his lips, even in death). Her voice and mannerism was cautious, generally anxious, and hinted at repressed angst. "You might want to box it up," she said over the tan bun indented by her grasp.

Hannibal couldn't help himself, but it also qualified as a therapeutic question. "Like you?"

The young girl's huge, wounded eyes flitted away from his. "It'll be there for me," she says softly.

After a long moment of reflection, Will broke the tension, "You're sure you don't want anything to eat?"

_Not from here. Not in this, or any lifetime. _Hannibal smiled thinly. "No, thank you. I had a large breakfast." Not untrue: the human liver, when reduced to liverwurst, was quite filling.

The mongoose and the fledgling continued to eat and chat, two injured and spiraling minds pretending to be whole. Although the snake was mostly secluded from the conversation, it was more by his choice than their mechanism.

It occurred to the cannibal that he couldn't make Maryann come to him. She danced around him, flickered beyond his grasp, twirled drunkenly like the bees she so loved, but he could no more control her path than that of the sun.

But he wanted to have her attention, greedily desired it. He may be Lithuanian, but the expectation of instant gratification was an American disease he acquired. Maryann Shule had been instant, heady gratification, up until a few days ago. Now, the silence was deafening, and without cause.

That would not do. It was appetizer before entre, in his world, not the other way around: not gluttony then fasting.

Obviously, he couldn't rely on her to retain contact, to hold the spoon to his lips while his hands were tied with the webs he wove.

So he would put himself in her path, where she would have to bowl him over, or stop.

How?

With ideal timing, capitalization of opportunity, and by continuing to mirror the Technicolor affection she gave.

After all, bees were attracted to color.

* * *

Hannibal had to get up early to prepare for a rarely-taken 8 a.m. appointment slot. His mind was pleasantly, peaceably fogged, and his house was silent and semi-dark, and his coffee awaited. When he glimpsed someone out the ground floor window, he had to double-take to be sure.

In the wane morning light, Miss Shule had backed her pickup truck full of heavy-looking sacks and Rubbermaid bins up to the edge of the garden, and on its tailgate sat several 5-gallon buckets. She was taking measured strides through the garden, her lips moving in tacit count, and her wrist was skillfully flicking a large ice scoop full of tan, thick grained powder onto the ground. As the doctor watched her, she airily fluttered the scoop to empty the last pinches, then plunged it back into the bucket she carried and continues on. The gardener ran out exactly at the end of the row, and turned on her heel to retrieve another laden bucket from the tailgate.

Hannibal was a reveler, by the dirt-dusted woman's approximation, and he delighted in watching: unseen, uninterrupted, propped against his window frame, seeking any interesting morsel. But like hunting from a blind, the chances of such observation bearing fruit were a toss of a coin. As such, it raised his spirits to take in her momentary show of weakness.

She dropped the empty bucket onto a stack, and her hand hesitated over the filled one on her tailgate. Then, her shoulders rolled forward on the inhale. In contrast to the tension of the motion, she languidly turned around to lean against the truck, crossed her ankles, and cradled the elbow of her lifted hand as it stifled the catlike yawn that curled back her lips.

He ate it up, his first contact in days.

To watch a being that was uninhibited by the weight of his eyes was intoxicating. In a way, the pain and terror he inflicted on victims was the same brand of candor he sought in the nonvictims, the living.

But then, in one way or another, everyone he met was his victim.

He moved to his kitchen and smiled as an inclination seized him. Grind, measure, boil, pour, steep. The scent of artfully burnt beans tempted his synapses as he transferred the French press of murky liquid, a sugar dish, a tiny carafe of cream, two spoons, a pair of cups, and two napkins to a tray.

He hesitated at the door, however. The last two times, Miss Shule had been in the middle of knocking, as though she'd read his mind from afar. Even as a lover of the human mind, Hannibal did not ascribe to beliefs in extrasensory perception, or superstition.

All the same, with hot liquids in the balance, he checked the peephole.

The air held promise of unseasonal warmth, and he sat the tray down on some patio furniture. "Good morning, Miss Shule," he called from the porch.

She jerked upright from her repose against the tailgate with almost comical haste, and removed herself from the comfortable pose. "Good morning, Doctor Lector," she replied, stifling another yawn. As she meandered towards the porch, Hannibal contained his smile. _Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly. _

"Early appointment, I gather?" she asked, knocking her boots against the bottom stair to rid them of most dirt.

"Astute observation," he agreed. His cheer was not contrived: he was getting what he wanted. "I do not rise at this hour unless paid to do so."

"Funny," she chuckled. "Neither do I."

Hannibal allowed his mirth to show as he turned with a cup of coffee in his hand. "I take it you have no bars against caffeine?"

"Hah, no," she snorted, taking the clear glass mug. "Not in the slightest. Thank you, that smells divine."

"There is sugar and cream here."

"I take it black, but thanks."

Hannibal settled into a patio chair, crossing his robed knees, and she took the mate to it, the tray of unneeded additions between them. All around, birds awakened the day and silenced the crickets, while colors opened their eyes to gleam under a tinge of gold. The earth breathed. The sky spun.

At the first sip, she groaned in a way that made his gut clench. "Oh, that's dark and rich," she hummed. "Like your soil." Tilting her head in his direction, in lieu of actually looking at him, she teased, "Kinda like you, in fact."

The doctor chortled. "The coffee is special. The beans were struck by Indian monsoon waters, and they floated in their racks for a while before resuming their initial drying stage."

"So we're sipping a storm. How poetic."

He tipped a corner of his mouth, words alienly echoed in his mug. "Kind of like you, Miss Shule."

"Maryann," she ordered serenely. "I'm too damn young for 'Miss', I've been meaning to tell you'."

He wanted to let out the wolfish grin, but refrained. "Very well. Hannibal."

"Hannibal," she murmured. Her careful roll of the syllables was like miniscule thunder in the cup.

He meant his 'poetic' comment both ways: that he was drinking her, the gale that lashed him with wind and wanton rain; and that she was incredibly poetic, in that despite all she fed him...

he still wanted to eat her.

"What is art?" Maryann mused, nose balanced over steam.

Finally, coming full circle. Hannibal silently waited for her thought to continue, biding his time. He had her. She wasn't going anywhere.

"Art is... in everything," she decided softly. "And yet, in nothing."

"Elaborate," he replied lazily, fingertips warmed.

"Art is this elusive idea that we chase. Every sketch, sculpture, photo... we're all looking for something definitive to call 'art'," she tried to explain her mind. "But we'll never find something, because the idea of art is not for definition: ours or others'. It is exclusively for seeking, and never finding."

"Like righteousness," said the cannibal.

The gardener gave him a gentle, pensive smile. "I guess so."

* * *

**Thanks to xXAnimeXXRevolutionXx for the quick save on the typos. That's the last time I use the 'search/replace' function to attempt to correct present tense to past tense. :P**


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:**

**Hey, everyone! I'm back!**

**During my hiatus, you guys just wouldn't let me go. Every day I tell you, there was at LEAST one follow, review, or favorite for this story in my inbox. I think you guys know something I don't. :)**

**This story is ranked #9 in the fandom in terms of reviews. ***#9!*** I'm so happy! But I, like Hannibal, desire to be top dog. I want to be #1. Can you all help me?**

**I will be posting brand-spanking-new chapter in the next day. I just wanted to reacquaint myself with my followers. Be on the lookout!**

**Thank you for so much adulation. Even naysayers who care enough to critique my work are appreciated. It's all love, in one form or another. **

**Sincerely,**

**Kepouros**


	9. Chapter 9

It was simply too delicious, the opportunity that fell into Hannibal's lap.

The little fledgling Abigail Hobbs made her first kill by her own hands.

It was a complete accident, without the pointed rage or icy dark desire. She killed Nicholas Boyle simply because he was there and threatening her, almost like a cosmic compelling to lift a knife and run it into his gut. An _instinct _just like his own.

The only difference was she had yet to accept her dark nature.

Hannibal let his curtain drop and his real self show in applause. He hid her murder (for that was what he told her it was), and drew her blood-soaked plumage into his nest of thorns. She trembled before the gravity of his might, the extent of his reach, the depth of his darkness. She shivered in realization of her genetics.

Her primaries finally broke the skin.

* * *

If the cannibal had had time, he would have missed Miss Shule - Maryann, now, - more. He came home from the overnight trip to Abigail Hobb's grafittied house to see a change in the soil of the Spring section: it had been tilled flat, and another, lighter machine had dragged across it in narrow bands. An investigation showed seeds below ground level, their little lightning-bolt radicles finding purchase. There were tiny tags stabbed into the soil at the head of each bed, like reverse grave markers that showed where life would bloom.

Hannibal went inside and immediately opened his email.

**Dear Doctor Hannibal,**

**Sorry, I cannot break good habits for you. Under the influence of delicious coffee, I relaxed my guard and dropped my manners. I will do as you ask and address you by your first name in speech, but it simply will not do to spill over into my virtual correspondence. **

**I blame you completely for any further degradation of my code! First it's the loss of honorifics, then it's forgetting to say 'yes/no sir/ma'am'... next thing you know, I'm listening to rock music and have adopted a Mohawk. (smiley)**

The attempt at levity was noted. Noted, and disregarded.

**I took the liberty of seeding some of the direct-seeding crops while you were away. Included is:**

**Arugula (my personal favorite green)**

**Turnips (the nice, sweet Hakuri variety, which is snowy white, as well as a purple-top variety)**

**Radishes (French Breakfast and Easter Egg types for color, color, color!)**

**Various lettuce mixes according to the textural array (frisse, leaf, mustards, etc)**

**Beets (Red, gold, white, and striped. We'll see how they do from seed, but I have some flats' worth in the greenhouse for good measure)**

**I also broadcasted by hand some red clover for cover crop on the other three areas. Cover crops are a way to grow fertility in place, and improve the tilth of the soil in their life, as well as in their death when they are tilled under. Plus, the bees love them!**

**There is much, much more to come! I started the first round of your transplants in the greenhouse today, and they should be ready in three weeks maximum. **

**I hope you had a pleasant trip!**

**Sincerely, **

**Maryann Shule  
Bee All Gardening**

Hannibal was marginally impressed by her devotion to her manners. Perhaps she felt as though she had overstepped, and was now backpedaling. She needed not: he was perfectly delighted to swallow whatever intimacies she presented. The very fact she was hesitantly striving for closeness was heartening to the doctor. Maryann could no more hide her feelings than a leopard its spots. Face to face, anyway, they were starting to acknowledge the same feelings.

With that thought, he typed a reply:

**Dear Maryann,**

**as you can see, I cannot break good habits, either. **He let the sting of his disproval at her regression imbue the words. He was loathe to let her take a meal from his mouth.

**You are fast becoming a beacon of happiness in my life of solemnity. Our friendship means more and more to me. **

A disguised low blow, true, by insinuating she didn't care for their friendship as much as he. Granted, it was his knee-jerk reaction to start surreptitiously bending her, but the sentiment wasn't founded completely out of that. Although he was self-reliant for nearly all happiness, as one of his marital and social status might be, Maryann was the browned, crunchy sugar on a crème brulee. Without her, the dessert simply wasn't complete.

For a moment, he sat back in his chair and considered the words on his page. Was he investing too much thought and emotion into this woman, who plumbed him as easily as a bee might plumb a flower?

Impossible, when the return on his investment was so magnanimous.

**Thank you for the update on the plants. I'm holding a dinner for some colleagues tomorrow night, and look forward to - dare I say it - showing off.**

**Sincerely yours,**

**Dr. Hannibal Lector, Psy. D.**

He regretted hitting the 'send' button almost immediately, and the feeling intensified over the course of the day.

That night, he tossed in his bed. To have something to meager as a single person disturb his rest was, in itself, distressing.

He felt, for the first time, he had misstepped in his calculations.

By continuing to call Maryann by her first name, he proclaimed he was unwilling to let go of their relationship's progress. To imply Hannibal had a stake in the interaction was dangerous.

And he had nothing by way of social protocol to fall back on for reason, unlike her. She was technically his employee: she could draw back on principle.

Staring at the shadowed ceiling beyond his four-poster bed, he berated himself for tipping his hand. He had showed that he was starting to _care._

If he'd lied and pretended it didn't matter, she would have remained fertile ground for his mental play with objective, subtle hands. Now, she had power over him.

The cannibal sighed to the darkness of the room. Truth was so hard to come back from.

He'd made his metaphorical bed, and now had to lay in it. In the stillness of his silent house and whirling mind, he had to admit he hoped for many more courses out of the little gardener before he killed her.

Hannibal came to the conclusion that he appreciated the gardener for her guilelessness, charm, wit, and indubious, unpretentious beauty.

He'd also came to the conclusion that he had to cannibalize her.

Like a sweet left on a plate, she had only a set amount of time before her freshness was gone. Some day, she would no longer endear him. He would utilize her alive in every way he could manage before death opened the door for the remaining ways.

The psychiatrist's inner demons rejoiced.

The man-eater turned to his side and finally slept.

* * *

The angel-maker was an instrument blunted by fear. Although Hannibal appreciated the religious connotations like Renaissance art, he couldn't fathom attributing it to his own kills with such fervent sincerity.

Hannibal preferred to keep God out of his kills. If he was simply an actor on a stage, and God was an audience member, he didn't want to know. Or perhaps he knew that to be true, deep down, and ignored the audience like any skilled actor ought.

Will Graham - just Will to him now, thanks to continued therapy that devolved in stoicism - was starting to come unraveled, like a hemline unsewn. Sleepwalking, vivid dreams, and a scent of hollowness... as though he was losing himself from the inside out. Hannibal inserted the fact into Jack's head like a stiletto blade.

Bella Crawford was a lovely woman: strong body made weak by the disease he could smell reeking from her pores. When she became his patient, he found her to be weak in mind, too. By hiding her cancer from Jack Crawford, her husband, she was wallowing in denial for as long as she could. Inexcusable cowardice: but from what his doctor's knowledge and sharp senses told him, she would not be able to hide much longer.

He enjoyed the dinner party with the Crawfords at his house, especially when he politely forced Bella eat pork. As he watched her chew with her guilty, worried expression, he deemed it fitting punishment for her lack of courage.

When the subject of his new garden came up, he conducted them into a tour of the upturned soil.

"I've got to say, Hannibal," commented Jack Crawford with an apologetic grin. "It doesn't look like much."

Bella lightly smacked his arm, but Hannibal merely lifted one shoulder and mirrored the smile.

True, there were only a few orderly, obvious carpets of sprouting seeds in the spring section and some scattered two-leaved clover sprouts cresting everywhere else. Hannibal chuckled, an elegant host. "Give it time. You'll have to come back for dinner in another month or so."

Bella Crawford soaked in the sight. "My mother used to garden," she said quietly. Behind her eyes, Hannibal saw the peace and happiness of times gone by.

Jack noticed, too. Later, he asked Hannibal for Maryann's phone number. The doctor handed him the Bee All Gardening pamphlet from his file, but made it politely clear that he wanted it back.

* * *

After one dinner party success, why not try for another?

It was Hannibal's habit to invite new acquaintances to his home to eat, both out of a cultural inclination and a need for control. On a psychological level, if he was honest with himself, formal dinners and the guise of therapy seemed the easiest way for him to interact. Within those events, his careful mannerisms were not out of place, but rather, necessary and enjoyed as a sign of a good host and therapist. When his guests or patients beheld him through a haze of blood sugar or healing tears, he was an orderly anchor of calm and trust.

Outside of those occasions, he was somewhat more stilted. Not in any noticeable way, not really. His personality was foreign, after all, and he was startlingly intelligent. He was just something like a lizard outside of a cage: staring in that indiscernible reptilian way, eyes scintillating, and out of his normal place.

For a midday pick-me-up, he started slicing organic strawberries with a lazily creative hand. Any excuse to sharpen his knife skills was time well spent.

Just as any excuse to develop his hold on Maryann Shule was.

It was afternoon and rainy, the forces of spring heat and winter cold duking it out in the atmosphere. Knowing he would catch Maryann indoors, he picked up the phone and called her, listening through three rings.

"Hello, Hannibal," came the groggy answer.

The cannibal had to chuckle. "Did I wake you?"

A reluctant little groan, born of creaking joints and stretching muscles. At the sound, Hannibal's mouth watered. He sated it with a strawberry, artfully fanned from the stem. "Yes, but it's for the best," the gardener replied. "I shouldn't be sleeping during the day."

The conversation was quiet and comfortable, as though they were the only two people in the fish bowl little world confined by droplets and warring, dense clouds. "You can hardly work in this weather. Why not nap?" he asked.

A stifled yawn. "It's the principle of the matter. I was forced to take naps as a child, and now I dislike even the idea."

"Most children require a nap. What made you hate yours?" Another pink heart's greenery was uncrowned, the core excised, and swallowed.

"It cut into my reading time, mostly," came the slightly embarrassed reply. "I was a bookish kid. Plus, as the saying goes, it's wasting daylight."

Hannibal had to admit, the sentiment fit her perfectly. Always on the move, on the go: and if she couldn't do those in body, then doing them in mind would suffice. Just like her bees. "I apologize all the same, Maryann. Please, allow me to make it up to you. Would you care to join me for dinner tomorrow night?"

He certainly wasn't expecting stunned silence on the other end.

* * *

It was by accident she fell asleep on the couch, to the hypnotic patter of rain on the roof. But between the cold medicine and the dreary atmosphere beyond the windows, she'd succumbed to her heavy lids.

_Oh, no. _

How in the hell could she wriggle out without hurting his feelings?

She had to! She couldn't go into his house, the house of a client!

After what happened last time...

"I'm busy that night, I'm afraid," she stammered, hating herself. The kind, exotic doctor didn't deserve her lies. He didn't deserve to be the victim of her own fears.

The came a tutting sound from the other end of the line, and Maryann relaxed marginally. "That's a pity. Some other time, then?"

"I...yes." He was such a pro. She hated herself even more.

"On another note, I have a question regarding the garden."

She straightened. "Shoot."

"You said in your email you had started plants in the greenhouse for me. I would like to lay eyes on the plants destined for my garden."

* * *

This time, he wasn't met with silence, but surprise.

"Oh! Um, okay!" She couldn't say no: it was in the thoroughly studied contract open on his knee. The discomfort was well-masked in her voice. "Just let me grab my datebook here..." Hannibal heard her walking through her house and a drawer opening. "Okay, what day and time is best for you to come out to my house?"

So she declined going into _his _house, but acquiesced to his invasion of her own? Peculiar. He had a few theories as to the cause of this phobia.

Hannibal grinned to himself. His secondary plan was having far better fortune. He would have his answers soon enough...

* * *

Maryann couldn't say no, she'd written one visit into the contract. It was a good way for her to sell her clients on her skills: her own gardens attested to her passion and education. It had seemed a good idea at the time she wrote the template.

Oh, good Lord, her hands were shaking.

Now she wasn't anxious in the throes of her deep-set fear. She was nervous. What would he think of the way she lived? Her tiny house, her immense gardens, her antisocial cats? Oh God, she was the Crazy Cat Lady!

After she'd read his email yesterday, she'd come to understand: he was starting to feel the same way she was. There was _something there, _but it was an tremulous as a candle flame. It could be snuffed with a breath, choked with a wetted pinch... or just as easily coaxed into a full, roaring fire.

Maryann set the date with him for two afternoons from then, hung up, and slid down the doorjamb of her office. Jinx slinked out from under the bed and regarded her from over a paw as he groomed.

Light grew into a defined beam from the window, courtesy of a tempermental atmosphere, illuminating her scarred, bare foot brilliantly.

"This guy is frickin' gasoline, Jinxie," Maryann groaned, dragging the mottled, puckered skin out of the sun's scrutiny. "I'm attracted to him. He's attracted to me. With the contractual relationship we already have, it's dangerous."

Juju slipped past Maryann's legs and rubbed, purring, against Jinx. "What am I going to do, guys? How do I handle this?"

The felines were classically taciturn, and another bout of heavy raindrops drowned out the momentary sun.


	10. Chapter 10

That night, she dreamed of his voice.

She stood in the middle of her gardens under a full moon that was practically close enough to touch, and she could _feel _its pull on her blood, her skin, her brain. It was common knowledge that the insane got even crazier at the full moon. The lunar body was not just a draw on animals.

Maryann stood under its feverish yellow gaze, feeling drugged. Her heart hammered, but her body was encased in molasses: cloying and sticky to body and mind. All of her gaze was filled with the giant orb, oppressively swallowing her attention in its beams.

Then, a presence behind her. Footsteps padding closer with the authority of a hoof, but the genteel nature of a paw. Closer, closer, finally standing just beyond touching.

Maryann could feel the heat of his tall, lean frame like a woodstove, could hear the slide and murmur of the thoughts inside his skull, could trace the raking of his eyes on her exposed neck, the crown of her head, the curve of her spine. The sound of his even and wraithlike breath gave him away, somehow: as identifiable as his accent. She knew who it was without a intelligible word.

_"Lovely," _came the sweetly accented whisper, titillating through her like summer brooks through melting peaks. It caressed her skin like fine mist. Try as she might, she could not turn to regard him, and he faded away like fog, taking his heat with him.

In his absence, cold seeped into her body. Another presence strode up behind her with all the arrogance of a king's approach. It felt like a glacier pressed against her back. _No, no no. Not you, _she thought. She knew this presence: he stalked her nightmares every time she slumbered. But she could not move to avoid him.

He seemed to be staring at the moon, too, which loomed drunkenly close and slipped maniacally along her synapses like violin strings tripping acid.

_"Baa, baa, black sheep,"_ breathed the apparition behind her, the telltale ghost of air expelled over her bare shoulder.

Maryann's entire body erupted in gooseflesh.

* * *

Maryann thrashed awake, nerves blazing, slapping at her prickling arms and breasts. She thought the goosebumps were insects for a fearful moment, but then wrenched her brain completely back to reality. Her scarred foot was on fire, but it was all in her mind.

She was in her bed, the covers flailed to the floor. The cats stared at her from their posts in the room: Jinx on top of the dresser next to the door, and Juju atop the headboard. Their yellow eyes reminded her of the dream moon.

Luna's real counterpart lit up the night beyond the curtains, and Maryann stumbled out of bed to push them aside. Full, just like in the dream, but not nearly so close. She could manage its insane pull from this distance.

Exhaustion was strong, so strong: like she had not slept in days. The half-empty NyQuil bottle on the bedstand indicated otherwise.

_Just a dream from cough syrup, _Maryann thought, crawling back under her comforter. _Not even a bad one, not really, compared to what it could be. At least Hannibal was in it. _It almost counteracted the other man...

It took her several jolting rejections to trust sleep enough to claim her once more, as the dream moon with its insane pull threatened to devour her again.

* * *

In a psych ward some miles away, the next day, the crazed moon claimed its final belated victim.

Able Gideon uses a fork tine to slip his cuffs, then his fist to break a nurse's throat (oh, how blessedly his knuckles split), then pursed lips to "Shh, shh, shh" her choked screams of agony and terror, then his thumbs to blind her (soft squish of rods and cones from under her retinas), then an IV stand's pole to impale her to the floor.

Drunk on the sight, the scent of blood. Every atom of his body sang, _finally._

Like a bird constructing a nest, or a spider its web, he diligently puts every stick-like object he can lay smeared hands on through her corpse. For the first time in two years, Gideon feels alive again. His humors finally feel balanced, bathed in the humors of another.

* * *

Hannibal worked hard to cultivate an air of trustworthiness. When Jack Crawford showed up to talk shop about the quote-unquote Ripper, Hannibal recognized an opportunity to sow discord.

The maneater wanted to know more about this doppleganger, who would _dare _to imitate his body of work. In fact, the Ripper persona that lay but a beck away in his darkest recesses had a tie to the FBI head knocker in front of him: Hannibal vividly and fondly remembered Miriam Lass, the little teacher's pet of Jack a decade ago, and every bloody thing he perpetrated on her.

The black man paced like a lion in a cage, coiled, tumultuous. He was wrapped up in his frustrations about his wife and her newly revealed cancer; haunted by the phone voice of his previous student pleading for help; bouncing off a proverbial wall with Will's declaration that Abel Gideon is not the Ripper; at a loss as to who it might be instead.

_I'm right here, _seethes the darkness inside the psychiatrist. He performs his duty as confidante admirably. "Tell me Jack, what are you afraid of?"

Within a few hours of Jack's serene departure, he had scrounged Miriam's cell phone housing her epitaph, and found her severed arm in the hidden panel of his basement freezer, though he left it there for the moment.

Jack's tautness seemed to have transferred to Hannibal: he was ready to growl with anger. This Gideon person had the audacity to pretend he was the Ripper? Hannibal raged mutely as he dialed a disposable cell phone untraceably, held Miriam's up to it, played back her recorded, desperate last words.

Time to resurrect the one, true Ripper, and remind Jack and the rest of the FBI who was Michelangelo, and who was the unrefined dilettante.

He resketched the Wound Man that started this chain of events so many years ago, to calm himself, then burned the sketch in his kitchen sink.

* * *

Dr. Alana Bloom was Mesopotamia in the arid world of criminal investigation and psychological profiling, whereas Dr. Frederick Chilton was a landfill. Hannibal invited them both to dinner at his home to assess the impact his haunting phone call to Jack made, as well as the status of the faux Ripper investigation.

Still angry over the TattleCrime article written on Gideon by Freddie Lounds (he knew he'd regret not murdering the bottle redhead), Hannibal took it out on Chilton with his usual scalpel-like precision. He deduced accurately Chilton planted the thought in Gideon's head that he was the Ripper. Alana looked at him with some awe, and trepidation.

Chilton left early in a fluster, and the two let him go with the scraps of his pride. Hannibal took special delight in knowing he embarrassed Chilton professionally and socially in front of one of the few females in the field.

Now, he could show the fair brunette his garden in peace. Even as he plucked a baby arugula leaf to thoughtfully savor and handed another to Alana, he marveled at how the human male, even one of his education and intelligence, could still act territorial over prospective females. He viewed it as more principle than practice, however: a tip of his hat to the inner Neanderthal that lurked even deeper in his mind than the Ripper.

"God, my heartrate has gone down just _looking_ at this garden," chuckled Alana, the picture of femininity. "You are quite fortunate, Doctor Lector."

He felts no compulsion to correct her usage of his title, not like with Maryann. His gardener was a tan Gaia: a fertile Mother Earth to Alana's cool and feminine Artemis.

It came to his attention, as he walked Alana to her car, that he would never have shown Chilton his garden, so carefully tended by Maryann's hands. The sanctity of the space was not violated by Alana, another female. Chilton would have sullied it with his ignorant, unappreciative presence: with the imprints of his shiny shoes in the dirt.

Hannibal had had enough of what is his being sullied.

* * *

It was not good enough. Though Will and the team knew Gideon is not the real Ripper, Hannibal decided to update his persona with an elevation, a one-up sure to keep them spinning for another several years.

In the dead of night, he awakened Jack (who is undoubtedly sleeping next to his cancerous wife, their bond renewed) again with the long-dead Miriam's recording. This time, he placed the call from an old observatory, and left Miriam's cell clutched in her severed hand.

He spared no pity for her, even latently. The stupid girl had been chasing him, and the impression had been like a dikdik chasing a leopard. Hannibal had rectified the natural order with a twist of his hands.

After he arranged the scene, Hannibal sat back on his heels for a moment, a smile lifting his lips. This has been quite fun, jerking Jack's chain and bringing a murder to full circle, symbolic close. By connecting the Ripper completely with Miriam's disappearance, he incited the full degree of horror and awe he sought. One noose, years in the making, finally drew taut.

The hand was actually the same one that held the phone to her ear, some years ago. The symmetry cheered Hannibal's beast.

But he wasn't done: not by a long shot. The Ripper needed a facelift, a modernization. The question now was merely how and when.

* * *

Maryann had no clients to tend for two days, which was both boon and curse. It gave her time to think about Hannibal's visit, which wasn't good in this instance. She spent the days obsessively cleaning the garden up and scrubbing down her little house.

Every garden bed, from the Shakespearian to the Moon Garden (her skin prickled uncomfortably) was weeded, remulched, deadheaded, and pruned back.

The paths were weedy, with sprawls of crabgrass splaying through the gravel, and she judiciously killed them with vinegar from a backpack sprayer.

Sunup to sundown, for two days, she vented every nervous emotion into the ground, sweated out all her anxieties. "He's going to come here," she steeled herself. "He will see all of this. He will see _you._"

But she was angry, too, though Hannibal did not deserve it. Okay, maybe he did. Why did he have to invade her small slice of the world? Was his own not big enough? On some level, she reveled in the attention of a man, even so platonically presented (and subconsciously implied as more). But why was it at the cost of her secret phobia?

"Get over it, already," she said softly into the petals of a dahlia, clearing her mind with the scent. "One traumatic event does not a trend make. Put it away."

And so she did. Heeding her own advice, she came to monumental grips with the fact that Doctor Hannibal Lector, with his model's cheekbones, deliciously suited frame, and Nordic accent was going to invade her realms.

_"Lovely," _echoed the dream voice in her head, the roll of L's and flick of the V. It made her heart flutter a little each time.

It made her want to suck his tongue, to see if she could taste the inflections, the syntax.

"Stop it!" she demanded of her libido as she mowed the grass. "He's coming for business." A hot cup of chasteberry tea did little to help her.

The day of Hannibal's afternoon visit, with every blade and leaf and pebble on her property in place, Maryann turned her attention inward. She soaked in a tub of herbs and water just shy of scalding. After sanding down her feet, she returned to the tub for a thorough sugar scrub that left her skin glowing and smooth.

She took a razor to everything that needed it, and then some. "Getting ahead of myself, I think," she muttered. "Put the razor down, Maryann."

Dripping nude before her closet, Maryann tried to decide what would be the ideal attire. What article of clothing subtly imsisted 'I am receptive'? What manner of dress assuredly showed the potential she felt growing?

"Not work clothes," she chastised the hangers, sliding them aside. "Dress? Pfft, one of my _four _dresses?" The idea appealed, but the quandary was her distinct lack of anything really appropriate. "Too much." The Infinity Dress that had been her bridesmaids dress in college was far too formal. She was going to show him around the greenhouse, for God's sake. "Not enough." The coral maxi dress wasn't suitable for tromping through gardens. She'd worn it all of once; it wasn't really her color.

Her phone rang on the bed, and after a moment's hesitation, Maryann answered it. "Hello?" she hoped she didn't _sound_ naked.

"Good afternoon, Maryann." Good Lord, the things that voice did to her... "It's Hannibal. Are we still on for tonight?"

The gardener swallowed, sitting on the bed. "Yes, yes we are. Looking forward to showing you around."

"I am excited for the chance to see your world," he replied. "I will see you in a few hours, then."

"A few hours," she agreed, smiling as though he were in front of her.

_"Sudie," _he said, and hung up.

Maryann sincerely hoped the naughtiness of chatting in the buff did not render in her voice. As she chucked the phone back to the coverlet, a slip of dove grey in the back of the closet caught her eye.

"Oh, yeah!" she exclaimed, extracting the dress with renewed discovery. A querying sashay before a mirror later, and she was convinced. "Couldn't ask for better," she declared.

Flipping her hair over to towel dry, Maryann resurfaced to find the cats had snuck into the room on silk paws. "Oh, no you don't," she scolded without venom, plucking the dress to safety. "Am I overreacting, guys? Hannibal might just want to keep things professional, or friendly. Am I wanting something that's not in the stars?" Maryann grunted in beration and pounded her fist against the doorframe singularly. "Dammit, _Doctor _Lector. Not Hannibal."

_That would mean his single-minded battle to see me outside my employment duties meant nothing to him. Which my gut tells me isn't true. _

In retrospect, the man had seemingly gone into their phone conversation with a Plan A and a Plan B. Since she'd refused to come to him, he would come to her. Flattering. Flattering and flustering.

"Why else would he be so dead-set on meeting me like this?" she asked the mirror, pulling the dress over her head. Critically eying the outcome of her choice, the gardener murmured. "Well, I'll know more in a few hours. One way, or another."


End file.
